Religion and politics

Daily Reading for November 5

An old saying holds that religion and politics don’t mix. Probably it was first said to Pharaoh when he turned down Moses’ plea to “let my people go.” Generally what it means is, “Your religion doesn’t mix with my politics.” If religion is where it all comes together—the microcosm and the macrocosm, intimate relationships and public policy—if Christians are called so to live “that in everything God may be glorified” (1 Peter 4:11), then religion and politics do mix and to claim otherwise is really to understand neither.

But to claim they mix is not to say they are identical. It is one thing to say with the prophet, “Let justice roll down like mighty waters” (Amos 5:24), and quite another to work out the irrigation system. The former is a religious concern, the latter a political task.

While Christians certainly don’t have to take positions on every issue, on matters of justice they have no choice. Said South African bishop Desmond Tutu, “When the elephant has his foot on the tail of the mouse, and you say you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

And neither will God. When you stop to think about it, how can God be neutral? How can God do otherwise than side with the oppressed? If God sided with tyrants, God would be malevolent. If God sided with no one, God would be indifferent, which is to say again “malevolent,” because God would be supporting tyranny by not protesting it.

The story of God and Moses and Pharaoh reminds us that compassion, for its implementation, demands confrontation. It also puts churches on notice to identify not with the structures of power but with the victims of power.

From “Beyond Charity” in A Passion for the Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches by William Sloane Coffin (Westminster John Knox Press, 2004).

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